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Photo courtesy Todd V. Wolfson

As Jimmie Vaughan moved to stage left to work the crowd at Saturday night’s Big Lick Blues Festival, the flashback hit.

Back in 1987, a friend of mine and I went to Knoxville, Tenn., to see Stevie Ray Vaughan at University of Tennessee’s Alumni Gym. “Couldn’t Stand the Weather” had just come out, and the man they called SRV was on top of not just the blues world, but the pop world as well. Within three years, he would be dead, a victim of a post-show helicopter crash.

But on that night 23 years back, Stevie Ray Vaughan was on fire. The highlight for me was his cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone From The Sun,” an acid-jazz romp during which he moved to the front of the stage while playing incendiary runs, then dropped his guitar on the stage floor. Grabbing it by the tremolo arm, Vaughan flipped it over and over like a pancake, getting wild feedback sounds to accompany the wood-bashing his pickups were reflecting.

I had to get up from my seat and walk to the stage, where a group of people had gathered to watch the wildness. It was riveting – one of those musical moments you never forget.

On Saturday in Roanoke’s Elmwood Park, Jimmie Vaughan at stage left brought the chills to my neck. I was standing roughly the same distance away as I had when his younger brother put on that astounding show so long ago. And the DNA was apparent as Jimmie Vaughan ripped through a plaintive, 12/8 blues.

They don’t sound much the same. Jimmie Vaughan had developed his own style well before his younger brother made his name playing Albert King licks on David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” JV is equal parts butter and knife, with a huge, clean tone and snaking lines that seem never to go wrong, or cliche.

Later, he walked back to the same spot while playing “Texas Flood,” the Larry Davis song that SRV had popularized so many years ago. Beyond the introductory phrase, the playing similarities ended. But their voices share a similar tone and range, though Jimmie Vaughan has a bit more laconic delivery.

And like his brother so long ago, Jimmie Vaughan was on fire in his unique way, with a super-tight, super-hip Tilt-A-Whirl Band backing him up tight as a tick. The backing unit included a Lynchburg native, Billy Pittman, who brought strong rhythm guitar parts and a couple of nice solos. Drummer George Rains and bassist Ronnie James were all pocket, all taste, and sax men Greg Picollo (tenor) and Kas Kasenoff Doug James (baritone) shouted and wailed throughout.

Vaughan is still recording quality music, evidenced by his latest, “Jimmie Vaughan Plays Blues, Ballads and Favorites,” a record filled mostly with covers of tunes he has had fun with over the years. “The Pleasure’s All Mine” and Vaughan’s own “Comin’ And Goin’,” from that record, sounded great.

And the record is full of singing from Vaughan’s long-time duet partner, Lou Ann Barton. She was on stage for about half the set in Elmwood Park, her honey-growl of a drawl sounding as sexy and come hither as ever on “In The Middle of the Night,” “Good Lover,” “Sugar Coated Love,” “Scratch My Back” and the new record’s “Wheel of Fortune.”

It was impossible for me to avoid thinking about his brother, gone now for 20 years, particularly when Vaughan sent the band offstage and played “Six Strings Down,” a tribute to SRV.

“Heaven done called another blues-stringer back home,” he sang in the memory of his brother. “Albert Collins up there/Muddy and Lightnin’ too/Albert King and Freddie playin’ the blues/T-Bone Walker, Guitar Slim …  see the Voodoo Chile, holding out his hand/I’ve been waitin’ on you brother/Welcome to the band.”

That led into another half-hour of full-band wailing before the nearly two-hour set was over.

We’re glad you’re still with us, Jimmie Vaughan.